Opinion | Hank Azaria apologized for playing Apu on The Simpsons I accept washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mellini Kantayya
Apr 23, 2021 9:20 PM ET
If I created a character with an authentic accent (there is no single Indian accent, as more than 30 main languages are spoken in India), the casting director asked me to do it again “but bigger.” If the role didn’t require an accent, casting directors asked me to redo a scene with one anyway because “we don’t know which way they want to go.” Spoiler alert: They always went with the accent.
Some incarnation of Apu is what they wanted. I realized that if I didn’t deliver, I wouldn’t work. So, I watched episode after episode of “The Simpsons” to imitate Apu’s accent.
Hank Azaria has issued an apology for voicing Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu on
The Simpsons, a controversial role he played for 30 years despite Apu being Indian. I apologise for my part in creating that and participating in that, Azaria said. Part of me feels I need to go round to every single Indian person in this country and apologise.
Azaria, who began voicing the convenience store owner in 1990, spoke about the recent controversies surrounding his character on Dax Shepherd s
Armchair Expert podcast.
In January 2020, he stepped down from voicing Apu on
The Simpsons. The voice actor insists the character was created with good intentions but said there were real negative consequences to the portrayal.
In a wide-ranging chat with
Dax Shepard on his sobriety and his career,
Hank Azaria opened up about the controversy surrounding his former
Simpsons character Apu.
Azaria, who is white, voiced hard-working Indian Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon for decades until stepping down from voicing him in 2020.
The controversy began after Indian comic
Hari Kondabolu‘s 2017 documentary
The Problem with Apu, which blamed the character for years of racist bullying.
“I really didn’t know any better,” Azaria told Shepard’s podcast
Armchair Expert. “I didn’t think about it. I was unaware of how much relative advantage I had received in this country as a white kid from Queens.”
Hank Azaria apologizes for voicing Apu on The Simpsons
April 14, 2021 by:
Armchair Expert podcast, Azaria is officially apologizing for voicing the characters and regrets that his decision took so long.
Azaria says during the podcast that I ve had a date with destiny with this thing for about 31 years and then he personally apologizes to Padman, the daughter of Indian immigrants, for portraying a character who has had such a negative impact on the community for so long: I know you weren t asking for that, but it s important. I apologize for my part in creating that and participating in that. Part of me feels like I need to go around to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologize. And sometimes I do when it comes up.